Papal Rhetoric: Heretics, Muslims, and Jews 249
A second Pauline–Augustinian theme that popes wanted to emphasize was the
eventual salvation of the Jews. So, in a letter expressing joy over the outcome of the
Fourth Crusade and the election of a patriarch of Constantinople who recognized
papal supremacy and the establishment of latin Christianity in the near East,
Innocent III recalled St Paul’s teaching:
But when after all Christians shall have returned completely in obedience to the
Apostolic Throne, then will the multitude of Gentiles also be drawn to the Faith, and
so ‘will Israel dwell in safety’.15letters of Gregory IX rebuking crusaders for hostile activity against Jews repeated
the same theme.16 drawing on romans 9: 27–8 and Psalms 94: 14, Gregory
emphasized that both old and new Testament prophets had testified that at the
end of the world a remnant of the Jews would be saved and that the lord would
not reject the Jews forever:
and that, as the prophets testified, although they should be as the sands of the sea, yet
in the end of days a remnant of them shall be saved, because the lord will not forever
spurn his people.17Gregory’s successor Innocent IV placed similar emphasis on the eventual salvation
of the Jews:18
We have received the tearful plaint of the Jews of Germany that same princes, both
ecclesiastical and lay, and other nobles and rulers of your districts and dioceses are
plotting evil plans against them and are devising numerous and various pretexts so as
to rob them unjustly and seize their property, without stopping to consider that it is
from the archives of the Jews, as it were, that the testimony for the Christian faith
has come forth.19Throughout his pontificate Innocent IV repeated the same theme. hence he
reminded the former crusader, Thibaut I king of navarre and count of Champagne,
that however great the perfidy of the Jews, God would not forsake his people but
awaited their conversion:
15 Innocent III, ‘Evangelica docente scriptura’ (21 January 1205), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.110: ‘Sed post
quam ad obedientiam apostolice sedis omnes omnino reversi fuerint Christiani, tunc multitudo gen
tium intrabit ad fidem, et sic omnis Israel salvus fiet.’ For the eschatological side to Innocent III’s
teaching, see Alfred Andrea, ‘Innocent III, the Fourth Crusade and the Coming Apocalypse’, in The
Medieval Crusade, ed. S. J. ridyard (Woodbridge, 2004), pp.97–106.
16 Gregory IX, ‘lachrymabilem Judeorum in’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.226–8; Simonsohn, pp.163–4;
‘lachrymabilem Judeorum in’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.228–30; Simonsohn, p.165.
17 Gregory IX, ‘lachrymabilem Judeorum in’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.226; Simonsohn, p.163: ‘... et
propheta testante, si fuerint velut arena maris, ipsorum tandem reliquie salve fient, quoniam non
repellet in sempiternum dominus plebem suam... ’
18 Innocent IV, ‘lachrymabilem Judeorum Alemannie’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.268–70; Simonsohn,
pp.194–5.
19 Innocent IV, ‘lachrymabilem Judeorum Alemannie’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.268; Simonsohn, p.194:
‘lachrymabilem Judeorum Alemannie recepimus questionem, quod nonnulli tam ecclesiastici quam
seculares principes, ac alii nobiles et potentes vestrarum civitatum et dioecesum, et eorum bona
iniuste diripiant et usurpent, adversus ipsos impia consilia cogitantes, et fingentes occasiones varias
et diversas; non considerato prudenter quod quasi ex archivio eorum Christiane fidei testimonia
prodierunt.. .’.